Sunday, February 16, 2014

Weekend Retreat

After all of the business travel over the past several weeks, you might think the last thing I would want to do is more travel, but my daughter, Melody, and I had a nice little over-night getaway this weekend. I had just returned home on Wednesday from a business trip to St. Louis, just ahead of a major snow storm that dumped well over a foot and a half of snow on us. We had planned our annual snow tubing trip over President's Day weekend, but the snow kept us from leaving on Thursday, as we normally do, and we cancelled. Melody and I, going a little stir crazy at home, decided we needed to do something, though.

On Saturday, we awoke to more snow. We proceeded to have on again-off again snow flurries all day. We packed up and took Faithful Pup Scout over to my parent's place, then headed north to Hershey, PA. It was a slow drive. There was a lot of traffic out on the roads, for some reason. Maybe it was the Holiday weekend, but a typical Saturday isn't normally this busy. We took our time, and finally arrived in Hersey at around 5 p.m. We went straight to our destination, Hershey's Chocolate World for the free factory tour, which is a "tram" ride through a chocolate factory. We've been coming here since I was a kid, though it has been tweaked and improved over the years, and appears to be undergoing a face lift even now. Melody loves it. We went through twice, and got a free candy sample at the end of the ride, this time a small pack of Rolos, which I didn't even know were made by Hershey's. Then we shopped for some chocolate gifts for our family.

We checked into the Quality Inn right up the road, then went back out for dinner at the Soda Jerk Diner in Hummelstown, a little town just down the road from Hershey. This is a pretty cool place, and modeled like a typical 40s/50s diner. The servers are mostly young women from Europe here to work, and, I assume, go to school in the US. We've eaten here several times now, and the food is good road food. I had the hot turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy. My daughter had pasta.

After our fine dinner, we went to the movies to see THE LEGO MOVIE. It was awesome! There was so much going on on the screen all the time, it was almost overwhelming, but it worked. I want to see it again if only to see the background action. There is a typical lesson about playing with toys and growing up and all that stuff. Suffice it to say the movie is worth seeing. The voice actors are major stars, and seem to fit the characters well. It was a lot of fun. Melody really loved it.

This morning, we had to rush a bit since we were really tired, but we had planned to visit with our old friends, Sandy & Michelle, and their son, at their church in Carlisle. Sandy is the Lead Pastor, and has been a friend for about 13 years. Michelle and my wife, Teresa, were close, as well. We quickly got ready, ate a quick breakfast at the hotel, and checked out. We had about 40 minutes to get to their church in Carlisle, and we arrived just in time. After a very good message and service, we had lunch with them at Red Robin. It was a really nice visit, and we promised not to wait so long before visiting again.

After saying goodbye, we headed south down through Gettysburg, and then down to Emmittsburg, MD. I decided to take a little detour and drive up into the Catoctin Mountains behind Mt. St. Mary's University, and drive by the old retreat camp I used to go to annually with my church youth group, and again as a counselor for almost ten years: Summit Lake Camp. It was just as I remembered, though it looked a bit run down. It was practically deserted, and I felt a little spooked knowing I was on private property. We took a few pictures without getting out of our Jeep, and I told Melody a few stories about the place before we continued on down the road.

We worked our way to Damascus to visit with my in-laws. My daughter hadn't seen her grandparents in almost a month, so we were long overdue. We surprised them, but it was a really nice visit. We chatted for a few hours, then we headed home. We picked up a Ledo's pizza on the way so we had a great dinner to finish off the trip.

It was a really great overnight trip, though I usually pay for it afterwards because of all of the driving. I used to be able to do 500 miles in a day. My record was 800 miles in one day, on a trip from St. Louis to DC. Now, a couple of hundred miles wears on me. I hope to sleep well tonight.

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Favorite Quotations

Matthew 16:23 - "But he turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.'"

Isaiah 41:10 - "So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."

1 Peter 5:10 - "And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast."

1 Thessalonians 4:13 - "But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope."

Titus 2:7-8 - "In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness and soundness of speech that cannot be condemned, so that those who oppose you may be ashamed because they have nothing bad to say about us."

John 15:13 - "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends."

Joshua 24:15 - "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord."

James 1:2-4 - "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

Philippians 4:8 - "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

Luke 2:14 - "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men."

"Don't judge a man by where he is, because you don't know how far he has come." - C.S. Lewis

"Be courteous to all, but intimate with few, and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence." - George Washington

"The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy." - Martin Luther King, Jr.

"We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein

"You don't lead by hitting people over the head -- that's assault, not leadership." -- Dwight D. Eisenhower

"The future starts today, not tomorrow." -- Pope John Paul II

"No man is a failure who has friends." - Clarence the Angel, IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE

"Please watch out for each other and love and forgive everybody. It's a good life; enjoy it." - Jim Henson